BALTIMORE (AP) — Dean Kremer allowed three singles in seven scoreless innings and the Baltimore Orioles beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1 on Sunday.
Kremer (7-7) struck out six and walked one. He has surrendered just two runs in his last three starts covering 17 2/3 innings and finished seven for the fourth time in 16 starts.
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Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson (2) and right fielder Ramon Laureano (12) celebrate after a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher Felix Bautista, right, and catcher Gary Sanchez, left, celebrate after a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Orioles' Gary Sanchez scores on a single by Coby Mayo during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Dean Kremer throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Keegan Akin replaced Kremer to begin the eighth and benefitted when Colton Cowser took a two-run homer away from Danny Jansen in left field.
Brandon Lowe hit his 18th home run off Félix Bautista to start the ninth and extend his hitting streak to 16 games. Bautista struck out Jonathan Aranda who had his 13-game hitting streak snapped — and then fanned Jake Mangum and Curtis Mead to end it.
Ramón Laureano hit the first pitch from Taj Bradley (5-6) in the second for a double and Cowser hit his second pitch for a single and a 1-0 lead.
Bradley retired nine straight before Gary Sánchez and Cedric Mullins had hits to start the fifth. Coby Mayo made it three straight singles for a two-run lead and Ramón Urías added a sacrifice fly to make it 3-0.
Bradley was replaced by Kevin Kelly with two on and one out in the sixth. Sánchez singled to score O'Hearn, and Mullins followed with a sac fly for a 5-0 advantage. Bradley allowed five runs on eight hits in 5 1/3 innings.
The Rays had two on with one out in the first, but Kremer worked out of the jam and then allowed a single and a walk through the next six innings.
The teams combined for 44 runs in splitting the first two games of the series.
Tampa Bay will host the Athletics for three games beginning Monday. Neither team has announced a starting pitcher.
Baltimore begins a six-game trip on Monday with the first of three against the Rangers. Neither team has announced a starting pitcher.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson (2) and right fielder Ramon Laureano (12) celebrate after a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher Felix Bautista, right, and catcher Gary Sanchez, left, celebrate after a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Orioles' Gary Sanchez scores on a single by Coby Mayo during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Dean Kremer throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sunday, June 29, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
